1. Field of the Invention
Example embodiments relate to display devices, and more particularly to a hybrid digital to analog converter, a source driver, and a liquid crystal display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, liquid crystal display (LCD), which may be flat panel devices, have been widely adopted in note-book computers, televisions, and mobile phones, because the LCD devices are light, thin, small, and consume little power.
Generally, an LCD device may include an LCD panel to display images and a source driver and a gate driver to drive the LCD panel. The LCD panel includes a plurality of data lines to receive data voltages from the source driver and a plurality of gate lines to receive gate voltages from the gate driver. A plurality of pixel areas are defined by the data lines and the gate lines in the LCD panel, and each pixel area includes a pixel having a thin film transistor and a pixel electrode.
When a number of digital bits of RGB (red, green and blue) data increases to enhance quality of images in the LCD device, the size of a decoder to decode the RGB data increases exponentially.
A conventional digital to analog converter employs a resistor string. The conventional digital to analog converter includes a resistor sting to provide gray voltages and a plurality of switches to select the gray voltages in response to input data. Gray voltages are defined as a gradient scale of voltages of varying levels between two voltages, such as a high input voltage and a low input voltage. When a number of digital bits of RGB data increases to enhance quality of images in the conventional digital to analog converter, a size of the digital to analog converter increases greatly because a number of the switches increases exponentially. For example, when the RGB data increases by N bits, the size of the digital to analog converter increases 2N times.